L3DT : Sky and Stars -- HOW TO ?

[fandaor]

Hello all,

Sorry for my questions but I'm a total newbie in the domain and I just have bought L3DT in the perspective of using it with TGEA (and the MMO kit).

I am in the first stage of my project and I am terraforming every thing.

I have 5 questions that I am sure you will answer very easily

- Sky & Sun
I would like to know how it is possible to introduce a multi-layer sky and a moving Sun. What I would like to get is a simple but nice looking multi-layer sky, with about 3 layers, that will allow me to have 3 kinds of clouds that I could move at different speed and give a depth effect (and more realistic).
Same for the Sun, based on a "clock" having it moving thru the sky.
Is this possible with just L3DT, or should I better implement this in TGEA, or must I use another "finisher" tool to complete the scene ?


- Stars
Well it's about the same as the previous question : is it possible to have a specific skymap and make it move depending on the "clock" ?


- Buildings & decorations
I would like to use Torque Constructor to make my buildings. Is it possible to import them into L3DT or is the soft "only" for Terragen and I must use TGEA or any other soft to render all the datas in one ?


- Atlas
I have read that it is possible to create an Atlas to link zones. Again sorry for my newbie'tude but is the Atlas feature can be used within the L3DT viewer ? If I build a bunch of areas, can I browse all of them or only one then I should load the next one etc .?


- Weather - climatology
It is possible to define the weather in a zone, wich is really a great thing. My question : is it possible to make animation in the weather (ex. rain drops) ? And is it possible to define seasons in the project or should this be handled by the renderer like TGEA ?

Again please accept my appologies if I ask not smart questions, I really begin in the job, trying to concretise a project I had since years.

Thank you very much in advance for your replies.


Fandaor

[Aaron]

Hi Fandaor,

Thankyou for your purchase, and welcome to the forums.

In answering your questions, I think the first thing I should point out is that L3DT is not a complete 3D modelling environment. It's primarily a calculation engine for map data, at least at the present time. Thus, it has no support for buildings or other objects that populate your 3D worlds. Anyway, onto the specific questions/answers:

1) I'm not sure that Atlas file can contain multi-layer skies or moving suns, and hence even if L3DT supported these things, it would have no way to pass them into TGEA. I think you'll have to do this in TGEA itself.

Oh, I should mention that L3DT does have a plugin for generating sequences of light maps (e.g. with different sun angles), but again I don't think there's a way to put multiple lightmaps into the atlas files (certainly not with the plugin as it is). In any case, it sounds a bit like you want full dynamic lighting, and that's something that can only be implemented on the renderer-side (i.e. TGEA).

2) Same answer applies for stars.

3) No, L3DT doesn't load buildings or other 3D objects at present. I'd recommend you combine your maps from L3DT and your buildings from Constructor in your game engine (I don't think Constructor can load terrain either).

4) I'm not quite sure I understand what you're asking (I'm quite the n00b when it comes to TGEA), but I'm fairly confident that the answer is "sorry, no". L3DT's support for Atlas currently extends only to exporting the whole heightfield and texture map to an atlas file. The viewer has no involvement with TGEA.

On the subject of viewing separate zones. L3DT doesn't really do this, as it was designed from the outset to support immense map sizes, which kind of make zones irrelevant. One option, I suppose, is to make your whole map in L3DT as one gigantic map and then carve it into zones with an 'export selected area' type option. At the moment, the atlas export plugin only exports the whole map, rather than a selected area thereof. I can change this if that's what you need.

5) You can define custom map layers for your weather zones, but there's currently no way to shoehorn this data into the Atlas files, so again I'd say this would be better-handled on the TGEA side of things. Rain effects are also a renderer-dependent thing.

In the future it's possible L3DT will support some of these features. However, I don't intend to turn the program into a general 3D modelling environment, as it would take development time away from the 'core' rationale for L3DT, which is making terrain and textures. I'd rather L3DT was good at a few things than mediocre at many.

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear from my answers that my grasp of TGEA is fairly tenuous, (particularly the non-Atlas stuff). Are there any TGEA ninjas lurking in the rafters of the forum that might be willing to cast some light on these subjects?

Cheerio,
Aaron.

[fandaor]

Hello Aaron,


Thank you very much for the reply. It's really clear now

I understand more now how I will process :
create the whole world in L3DT and then chunk it thru the atlas for exporting it to TGEA to render the whole thing.

Many thanks !

Fandaor

[Madcowthomas]

fandaor if you need any help getting the map into the engine let me know. Be more than happy to take the time and help you.